Today, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) joins the human rights community for the kick-off of the 18 days of activism to end violence against women. As Gender Ombud under the Magna Carta of Women, the Commission is pleased to join this year’s 18 days of activism with a focus on the full implementation of the Safe Spaces Act. As we begin this campaign, we partner with fellow advocates and key government agencies in fulfilling the promise of the Safe Spaces Act. We also reiterate our call for the elimination of all forms of violence especially as against women human rights defenders, women of courage who continue to advocate for human rights despite constricting civic society spaces.

Allow me to share with you the campaign that we have launched today – the Safe Spaces Now: Right the Ride Campaign. We are very proud of this campaign and we are very thankful for Wunderman and Thompson for helping us develop a campaign that focused on addressing rampant sexism, misogyny and other firms of gender-based violence in public spaces.

The campaign takes off with jeepneys, which are transformed into vehicles promoting the safe spaces act, carrying empowering messages, and calling for respect for all. Jeepneys are the most recognizable Filipino icon, but oftentimes, because of misogynistic and sexist messages, they become unsafe spaces. With this campaign, we right the ride! We work with transport groups and partner agencies in the call for safe spaces for all. The campaign is being implemented with the support of the UN Country Team and the transformation of jeepneys is done in partnership with the National Confederation of Transport Unions and the Mandaluyong Alliance Transport Service Cooperative.

We have also partnered with the Land Transportation and Franchising Board and the Metro Manila Development Authority that are also tasked to implement the Safe Spaces Act. Understanding that the campaign for safe spaces is a collective undertaking, we also continue to work with our close partners in eliminating all forms of VAW – the Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau (WLB), the Lunas Collective, partners from the mobility and women’s human rights movement.

More than the transformation of the jeepneys, and more than the almost 20 kilometers of travel from Mandaluyong to the Commission – what we really aim to achieve is the collective undertaking towards the fulfillment of the promise of the Safe Spaces Act. This means working with agencies tasked to implement the law: engaging them in consultations as what we have done with WLB in April and in June 2021, and this time through this campaign; it means making violations visible and remedies accessible for instance, through our Bawal Bastos portal; it also means continuing partnerships for Safe Spaces in all levels – in our regional and central offices, in the communities; through the private sector, through our partner transport sectors, and women’s human rights and mobility organizations.

Working together like this keeps us inspired and grounded. We are still faced with many barriers. While many promises of the law remain unfulfilled, we will be together in seeking accountability and in working together to make spaces safe for all, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized.

We reiterate and emphasize a message that the Commission issued weeks back – a message calling out violence perpetrated against women human rights defenders. In this time of constricting civic spaces, in a time where women are punished for speaking out and for dissent, we reiterate our call for the government to address all forms of violence against women. We call out violence against women committed by third parties in public spaces, and more so those committed by agents of the State – those especially meant to silence dissent, to stifle calls for accountability, and those specifically targeting human rights advocate and defenders. ###